


Do It For The Vine

by crossroadswrite



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alive Hale Family, Alternate Universe - No Hale Fire, Kid Fic, M/M, Magical Stiles Stilinski, Single Dad Derek Hale, Skateboarder Stiles Stilinski, Still Werewolves, meet cute
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-20
Updated: 2015-12-20
Packaged: 2018-05-07 23:01:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,108
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5473748
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crossroadswrite/pseuds/crossroadswrite
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Tammy,” he calls her to attention and his baby daughter turns her sweet hazel eyes to him. “Do you want to go to the skate park tomorrow?”</p><p>Autumn gasps and twists until her bony knees are digging into his thighs.</p><p>“Daddy,” she says very seriously, placing both hands on his cheeks and looking him in the eye. “Don’t play with my emotions, daddy.”<br/>.<br/>(OR: in which Derek's daughter gets a skateboard and a cute guy teaching her tricks and Derek just gets the cute guy.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Do It For The Vine

**Author's Note:**

> things i need you to know: the working title for this was "skateboarder trash" and that's stiles' aesthetic in this and i'm sTILL DYING OVER IT

It starts with a vine.

Cora had been innocently sprawled on the couch, thumbing through her phone boredly and Derek had been innocently trying to braid his daughter’s hair into something resembling “ _a fairy princess murder ninja, daddy please”_ and it had been all fairly innocent.

Until Cora had stopped her scrolling and held her breath as some rap song came on looping for six seconds as Cora whispered, “Holy shit!” in something that sounded a lot like awe.

“Cora,” he warns sternly. “No swearing in front of the kids.”

Cora shoves her phone in his face just in time for him to see a young girl in a fairy princess costume jump off a little step with a sakteboard and doing a, admittedly, sick trick.

His eyebrows climb up in surprise.

“Right!” Cora says, gesturing towards her phone.

Tammy reaches for her wrist and pulls it down so she can see it too and Derek can practically see the moment the wheels turn in her head, he can almost pinpoint when his daughter gains a new obsession by the way her eyes widen and her eyebrows shoot up and her mouth falls open in a soft and quiet “whoa” that makes her bunny teeth peek out.

“So cool, right?” Cora takes her phone back and Tammy makes grabby hands at it.

“Again again again,” she begs and Cora exchanges a look with Derek.

“I’ll send it to daddy so you can watch as many times as you want, alright princess?”

Tammy nods and starts patting Derek’s pockets for his phone, pouting when she doesn’t find it.

“Tammy,” he calls her to attention and his baby daughter turns her sweet hazel eyes to him. “Do you want to go to the skate park tomorrow?”

Autumn gasps and twists until her bony knees are digging into his thighs.

“Daddy,” she says very seriously, placing both hands on his cheeks and looking him in the eye. “Don’t play with my emotions, daddy.”

Cora starts snickering and Derek limits himself to a roll of his eyes. He needs to stop letting Katie hang out with Tammy unsupervised.

“I’m not baby girl. Promise I’ll take you to the park tomorrow.”

“And you’ll get me a skateboard?”

“If you really want one.”

“I really, really really want one!” she says fervently. “I’ll help Grandpa in the greenhouse and I’ll wash Jay’s trikey for three whole weeks and-“

Derek smooths a hand over her hair and tangles it in her curls. “How about you just promise you’ll try not to get hurt too much.”

Tammy seems to consider this before nodding.

Derek offers her his pinky. “Shake on it?”

She curls her tinier one around his and they shake, Autumn’s face lighting up into a brilliant smile before she throws herself at Derek and hugs him tight, so tight she almost cuts his airway. “You’re the best daddy ever!”

«»

“Do you have everything?” he asks for what is probably the tenth time.

Autumn sighs exasperatedly. “ _Yes_ , father.”

Derek sighs much like his daughter had and picks up her Hot Wheels backpack, double checking it has everything he’ll need from snacks to first aid to Tammy’s favorite doll.

“Can we _go_ now?”

“Yes, now we can go. Got your helmet?”

She pats her helmet decked head and nods. “And all the other protection too!”

“Good. Got your skateboard?”

She waves it at him.

“Do you have the stickers to make it pretty, daddy?”

“In your backpack sweetheart. You can put them as soon as we find a good spot.”

“Hand?” she asks, stretching hers up until Derek wraps his fingers around it, feeling pleased that his daughter still lets him hold her hand when they’re going places when most of the kids her age shy away from their parents.

“You’ll walk too slow if I don’t pull you,” she says matter-of-factly.

Derek sighs heavily again.

“Don’t puff daddy, it’s not polite.”

“You spend too much time with Grandma.”

“Grandma is the bestest,” Tammy says loyally. “And she can turn into a wolfie and she runs the fastest _and_ she had you which is the bestest because if she didn’t I wouldn’t have the best papa ever.”

Jesus Christ, how is he supposed to stay exasperated with his kid when she’s the sweetest little ball of sunshine to ever grace this earth? He can’t. It’s a real problem.

Derek stops and leans down to give her a kiss in the forehead. “You’re the bestest daughter ever so I guess we’re even.”

Autumn beams at him. “I know! Now _let’s go_.”

“Yes, yes. We’re going.”

They find a pretty nice spot, far from the older kids loitering about with a couple of small ramps where Tammy can safely go down in if she sits on the board.

She quickly tires of that, wanting to do it _properly_ like the magical girl on the video.

Here’s the problem, though. Derek doesn’t know the first thing about skateboarding. It wasn’t really his thing when he was younger and he never had any interest in it. Sure he could roller blade like the best of them, but skateboarding? Nope, not even a little bit.

So when Tammy keeps falling off her board and her frustration levels keep rising to the point she pierces one of the apple juice boxes with her claws Derek feels a little hopeless and is about ready to call it a day and march home to do some intensive studying via Youtube.

“Maybe we should-“

“ _No_. No, I can do it!” Tammy puffs her cheeks in annoyance and crosses her arms. “Don’t you believe in me, daddy?”

Low blow.

“Of course I do, sweetheart.”

“Good. Because I wanna try a little more before you go learn to teach me. Like you did for my hair.”

Derek presses his lips together and nods. He’s entirely too soft with his daughter, this is something he knows and admits to, something that’s pointed out to him occasionally. But after everything they’ve been through he thinks he’s allowed to be.

They’ve been here for a good two hours going on three and Derek’s starting to get a little antsy, eyeing the larger group of boys who had arrived, elbowing each other and doing dangerous looking tricks on their boards; falling off and laughing it off and getting back up to do it again.

Derek’s admittedly having a hard time not tucking his daughter under his arm and cart her away from the too loud _youths_.

And to top it all off, some of them started eyeing them and muttering about hogging the ramps even though there’s plenty others in the park.

Tammy falls on her butt, her board rolling away from her lazily as she curses out a “soggy animal crackers!” before hopping back up and dusting herself off.

When she turns to search for her board an older boy has it under his foot and Derek’s dad senses go into overdrive, getting up, fully prepared to deliver the “this is a public park and we have the right to be here too” speech.

The boy however kicks the skate up and extends it to Tammy, pulling at his low hanging pants so he can crouch down a little bit.

“You looked pretty cool riding that skateboard,” he compliments with an unthreatening smile.

“I fell,” Tammy points out and the boy shrugs.

“I fell a _ton_ of times when I was starting. Way, way more than you.”

Tammy lifts her eyebrows. “Are you any good now?”

Boy laughs and does a so-so move with his hand. “I can do some tricks. Want to see one?”

Tammy gasps and nods her little head up and down as hard as she can.

“Cool,” the boy says and steps back a little, getting on his board and giving impulse until he’s cruising smoothly, heading straight for a little flight of stairs, hopping on his board and landing it on the railing as he slides down the stairs and lands, a little unbalanced, on the other side.

He turns around and kicks his board up, jogging back towards Tammy who’s practically vibrating with excitement.

“That was so cool!” she gushes and offers her hand up for a high five.

The boy high fives her. “Cool. Want me to teach you how to skateboard?”

“Ye-“

“Autumn,” he says quietly, just loud enough for her to pick up on it.

Tammy turns her head towards him and nibbles at her lip. “I need to ask daddy first.”

The boy raises his chin and looks up at Derek and for one second everything seems to be frozen, suspense in some kind of irregularity in the time-space continuum, before it kicks back into motion and the boy loses his balances from where he had been crouching in front of Tammy, a soft ‘oh’ falling from his parted lips as he blinks up at Derek, cheeks flushed.

Derek calmly walks over and pretends he’s not noticing how pretty the boy’s moles are when he’s flushed, pretends he doesn’t notice how _pretty_ he is in general.

Tammy clings to his arm and pulls at it. “Can he teach me how to skateboard? Please, please _please_.”

Derek raises an eyebrow at the boy that’s still sprawled on the floor and he jumps up, dusting himself off quickly and giving Derek an awkward wave.

“Hi, hello. I’m Stiles.”

“That’s a silly name,” Autumn pipes up.

Stiles looks at her and then at Derek, back at her and back at Derek is eyes skipping from one to another as if expecting something that isn’t coming.

“Aren’t you going to correct her?”

“She’s right,” Derek shrugs and surprisingly the boy laughs happy and bright, scrubbing at the back of his neck.

“It’s a nickname. Are you going to tell me your names?”

“I’m Tammy! And this is my papa Derek.”

“Nice to meet you,” Stiles says and sticks out a broad, long fingered, all around _pretty_ hand. Everything about him is pretty, has Derek mentioned that? He feels like he has but it bores mentioning again because _look at those cheekbones and the eyes and the mouth_.

Tammy shakes it and then it’s Derek’s turn to wrap his fingers around that hand and give it a firm shake and the only thing he can think of is _teenager_ , that is until he catches a glimpse of a tattoo on the inside of the boy’s wrist.

He turns his hand to look at it better, lips pressing together when he registers it’s a rune, a powerful one at that, able to invoke an element, even if Derek isn’t sure which.

“Are you even old enough to get that?”

Stiles huffs a little and takes his hand back. “Okay daddy disapproving pants, I’m twenty-three.”

Derek’s shoulders relax a little. Twenty three. He can work with that.

Tammy pulls at his sleeve again, “Can he teach me how to skateboard now?”

Derek gives Stiles the once over, giving himself time to take in the strong thighs and calves not being even a little bit hidden by the loose shorts he’s wearing and the trashy tank top that looks more like someone grabbed a pillow case and cut three holes in it than an actual shirt, which should hang loose on his frame but instead clings to his broad shoulders and flutters with plenty of space for hands to sneak under around his waist.

Derek’s eyes meet Stiles’ under the backwards douche cap he’s wearing and he tilts his head, squints a little considering if he should let this random man – thank god he’s a man already – teach his daughter how to skateboard. He’s unassuming enough and Derek can’t smell any bad intentions from him.

Not that that is something you can actually smell, but say if he had been perving on his little girl Derek would have been able to smell the chemo signals that that gives off.

“Sure,” he says. “Not for long though. You promised you’d play with Jay and Mara in the afternoon when they’re back from Aunt Lyris’.”

“Yes, papa.”

And that’s how Derek Hale finds himself sitting on a little low wall, watching some pretty trash skateboarder teach is daughter how to balance on her skate and how to manage all the basics of it and finding himself… intrigued.

Which is to say a lot, he hasn’t been intrigued, _interested_ in someone since before Autumn was born and the whole Jennifer debacle.

 He shudders just thinking about it and thanks whatever higher gods there are that Autumn is his spitting image, not having inherited even a drop of her mother.

“Awesome!” Stiles praises, offering his hand for a highfive which his daughter has to jump to give, giggling happily.

“You’re almost as good as me, one day you’ll be in the skateboard Olympics!”

“Whoa, really?”

“Obviously,” Stiles says earnestly before going about teaching her how to place her board upside down on her feet and then flip it and landing on it perfectly.

“Stiles! We gotta go!” one of the boys that had come with Stiles calls, waving an arm and beckoning Stiles over.

“Hold your freaking horses dude!” Stiles shouts back and gets a middle finger flipped in his face.

“So, Tammy, it was cool hanging out with you-“

“Seriously Stiles, I’m going to eat your share of the pizza.”

“But I really, really gotta go because I have the _worst_ friends. Bump it,” he says offering his closed fist for Derek’s daughter to bump hers against and then they both make a little explosion. "Awesome. Hope to see you and your dad around. Bye, have fun!” he says, sparing a lingering glance at Derek and giving a short little wave-salute that both is and looks ridiculous.

Tammy and Derek both watch him roll away in his skateboard after the pack of young men leaving for a couple of seconds, seemingly transfixed.

When Stiles is finally out of sight Tammy bounds over and claims she wants to go home.

“It’s no fun if he’s not here,” she says on a little sigh, but it’s hard for Derek to think that his daughter is sad by this since she has a beautiful little grin hidden just at the corners of her mouth.

“Alright, we can pack our stuff and meet Aunt Laura at the kids’ park how does that sound?”

Tammy sighs a little. “I _guess_ , if we must.”

Derek rolls his eyes at his daughter’s antics.

“But first I want to put the cool sticker Stiles gave me on my board,” she announces holding up a sticker with a cow in a helmet with a skateboard under one of its hooves saying “do you guys want to go skateboards”.

Derek huffs a laugh and helps his daughter stick it symmetrically perfect, smoothing out any air bubbles.

«»

“Daddy and I made a friend,” Tammy says when they’re at the dinner table, kicking her feet back and forward in her chair as she makes Derek’s father feed her, even though she’s been able to feed herself without making a mess for a while now.

“That’s nice, honey,” Lyall smiles, making little airplane noises with a forkful of mashed potatoes. “Are they in your school?”

“No,” Tammy says. “He’s way old. Like adult old,” she starts. “He made daddy’s heart go doki doki. Like in Sam’s comics.”

Derek’s knife scrapes harshly against his plate, the sound echoing through the suddenly quiet dining room.

“Derek-“ his mother starts and no.

“No.”

“ _Derek_ -“

“No. He did not make my heart doki doki. My heart doesn’t go doki doki.”

“Stop saying doki doki,” Laura complains.

“It’s Sam’s fault for letting Tammy read her comics.”

“Okay first of all it’s _manga_ and they’re my girlfriend’s,” Sam chimes in indignantly. “Second of all, I can’t believe you’re blaming me for your daughter’s kleptomaniac tendencies.”

“Autumn doesn’t have kleptomaniac tendencies,” he shoots back readily.

“I bet she has someone’s car keys in her pockets right now.”

Derek turns to his daughter and squints. “Tammy?”

“Sorry,” she mutters and takes out a keyring from her front pocket with a tiny batsignal dangling from it.

Derek sighs and opens his palm in a silent demand and Tammy drops them in his palm.

“I was just borrowing them,” she says quietly as Derek pockets his keys.

“For what?”

“I want to go to the park tomorrow again so Stiles can teach me how to go skateboards.”

“I think you mean-“

“No,” Tammy cuts Laura off. “I said it right. It’s in my board, right daddy?”

Derek shakes his head and sighs, going back to his food. “Right.”

“Right! And Stiles is the _coolest_. He has tattoos and he can do tricks on his skateboard and he likes daddy so that makes him even _cooler_.”

“Does he now?” Laura places her elbows on the table and her chin on her hands, leaning in and giving Derek a speculative look.

“No,” Derek grunts and takes the fork his father had been feeding his daughter with, touching it to her lips so she can eat and be quiet about things. That aren’t even things. Because for them to be things Derek would need to be interested in Stiles, which he’s not. His name is ridiculous and his dumb pillowcase disguised as a tanktop is ridiculous and his upturned nose and wide mouth and mole speckled skin that maybe makes Derek want to grab a marker and draw constellations is ridiculous. And he’s not interested.

Laura is grinning at him, eyes tripping down to his chest. “Doki doki,” she says like she’s a bonafide standup comedian and this is her legacy punchline.

Derek throws his peas at her.

“If you eat your food quietly I’ll take you to the park tomorrow.”

Tammy mimics zipping her lips and grabs the fork to eat by herself.

Derek is just about to go back to his food when Laura’s carrots hit him on the forehead.

«»

It’s almost eleven o’clock at night and Tammy is lying soundly asleep in her bed alongside Mara and Derek is sitting in the living room, pausing in his typing to listen for his daughter’s heartbeat, reassuring himself all is fine.

“So,” Laura says in the least casual way a so was ever uttered. “You writing about your boy crush on your PTA daddy blog.”

“Don’t say daddy it’s weird.”

“So’s your face and I had to live with it all these years,” Laura shoots back immediately.

Derek growls and shoves her off the arm of the couch.

Laura laughs and sits next to him, peering at his laptop screen.

“You _are_ writing about him.”

“He was nice to Tammy and helped her with her new hobby. It’s a blog about parenting Laura.”

“It’s a blog about parenting young werewolves Derek. Skateboarding and cute boys have nothing to do with it.”

“It’s good to break gender expectations.”

“Look at you,” Laura grins reaching over to ruffle his hair. “Mr. Dad of the Year.”

“Shut up,” he grumbles, pretending he’s not blushing.

Laura laughs again and leans against his side, making herself comfortable there.

Derek goes back to typing and waits her out. He knows that this conversation is far from over and that Laura as a new Alpha will have to ask more questions, will need to ask more questions.

“You know it’s been a long time since you showed interest in someone. And I mean _long_ Derek.”

He sighs a little, fingers resting gently on the keyboard, cursor blinking at him midsentence.

“I know.”

“Since before Tammy and how old is she know?”

“Six.”

“Almost seven.”

“Almost seven,” he agrees petulantly.

There’s another short pause as Laura just breathes and lets that information settle.

“We’re not going to push you on this. I’ll make sure no one is- I mean, you know I can’t control everyone all the time but-“

“I know. I know what you mean.”

“Right good. Because that said I’m also not letting this go. This is good Derek and if you’re interested I think you should pursue it.”

Derek leans his head back against the couch and blinks up at the ceiling and the chandelier that always seems about two swings away from falling on someone. He wonders why they still have that up there.

“Maybe,” he concedes. Because maybe. If he’s being honest, Stiles is cute. He’s really cute and he’s kind to Derek’s daughter and he looks like fun. The good kind of fun, the adult kind of fun and Derek has been needing some adult kind of fun since lately all he’s been getting is Disney princess marathons and super hero squad marathons interspaced with nerf gun fights which are _fun_ admittedly, but- but _adult fun_. He needs some and maybe Stiles can be that for him.

(Or maybe Derek will do something stupid like fall horribly in love with him and get his heart broken.)

“That’s all I ask for,” Laura says, kissing him on the cheek and getting up. “Consider it and make a decision. Whatever you decide we’ll respect that.”

Derek nods, taking a deep breath to settle in this new decision.

“Look at you being all grown up and stuff,” Laura teases.

“Look at you being a good Alpha and stuff,” Derek throws back and is rewarded by the way his sister ducks her head and smiles like the sun has just come up for her.

«»

Waking up with the weight of his daughter on his chest isn’t something new to Derek. He’s been experiencing it since she was a tiny little newborn and Derek didn’t trust beds or cribs for her to sleep in so she would just sleep on his chest all the time. It soothed her, it soothed Derek it was a win-win situation on both sides.

When she got older she needed her own room, they came to a mutual agreement, even if most mornings she would sneak into his room and wake him up by sitting on his chest or jumping around the bed.

What was not new however was the tiny voice on the phone as his daughter petted his beard, waiting for him to wake up.

“No daddy’s sleeping. Auntie Laura says he needs his beauty sleep or his bunny teeth will grow so much they’ll touch his chin.”

Someone laughs softly on the phone. _“Better let your father sleep then.”_

Derek pries one eye open and peers up at his daughter waiting for her to realize that he’s awake.

Tammy stops petting his beard and scrubs a hand over his hair, messing it up catastrophically.

“He’s awake! Hi daddy!”

“Hello,” he mumbles. “Who’re you talking to?”

“Stiles called to talk with you but you were asleep so I picked it up.”

Derek blinks at his daughter slowly before slapping a hand over his eyes. Of course she is.

_“Tammy can you pass the phone to your dad? I have something very important to talk with him about?”_

“Oh, are you going to ask him to marry you?”

Something audibly crashes on the other end and Derek very slowly and methodically exhales, pinching the bridge of his nose.

_“Oh, um- no I don’t- um- why- why would I do that?”_

“Because you made daddy’s heart go doki doki and if you marry him you can teach me how to go skateboards all the time.”

Derek grabs his daughter around the waist and throws her softly off him, stealing the phone when she startles and bounces on the bed with a giggle.

“Daddy! I was using that!”

“And now you’re not. Go bother Grandpa to make you breakfast,” he shoos.

Tammy pouts. “You didn’t even morning smooch me, daddy? Why do you forsake me, daddy?”

Derek sighs and considers just keeping his daughter from his entire family so he doesn’t have to deal with things like this.

He leans over and kisses her forehead. “There, I morning smooched you. Now go ask Grandpa for breakfast.”

“Okay! Tell Stiles bye and that I want to go skateboards later.”

“I’ll think about it,” he compromises, watching carefully as his daughter jumps out of his bed and pads away, the hoodie in her unicorn onesie bouncing behind her.

Derek takes a deep breath before taking the phone to his ear. “Hello?” he asks carefully.

“Oh, hey,” Stiles answers. “I thought you had hung up for a second there.”

“No, I- my daughter-“

“Was being her little adorable self, yeah I heard. That’s what kept me from hanging up.”

Derek nods a little, a smile tugging at his lips when he hears Stiles call his daughter adorable because damn right she is.

“Anyways, I was calling about that post on your blog?”

Derek’s grip on the phone becomes something akin of vicious. “What?” he rumbles, absolutely does not squeak. Because Derek Hale doesn’t squeak. Squirrels squeak. He’s a _wolf_.

Wolves do not squeak, they rumble in surprise. And that’s what he just did.

“My friend Scott has a kid and he showed it to me?” Stiles says like a question, that seems to be the only way he knows how to word his sentences right now. “And I thought I’d call to say that it was my absolute pleasure and that I wouldn’t mind to teach Tammy how to skateboard more if that’s something you’re interested in?”

“Oh.”

Because right, of course Stiles called because of Tammy. She’s a little charmer that one and it’s not like he’d have any reason to want to hang out with Derek, after all he’s surly and overprotective and Stiles probably isn’t even into gu-

“And ask if you’d like to go out for coffee with me?”

“ _Oh,”_ he repeats like some kind of moron, ducking his head a little and shifting in place, one hand going to scrub at his thigh self-consciously and he’s just so happy Laura isn’t here to see him blush on the phone like a smitten fourteen year old.

“So,” Stiles says a little unsteadily into the silence, dragging the ‘o’ obnoxiously. “Is that a no? Because I’d understand if-“

“No,” he rushes.

“No, it’s a yes?”

“Yes.”

“Yes!” Stiles crows and there’s a wooshing that sounds distinctly like he just punched the air in victory. Derek isn’t going to ask. He’ll just keep that image to himself and privately think it’s adorable.

“A date sounds good. How about before we go to the skate park? And if it goes well, I’ll take you to dinner, sans kid.”

“Sounds awesome,” Stiles agrees readily. “So see you later today?”

“Three good for you?”

“Three’s perfect. We can meet at the little coffee shop just across the park. They have milkshakes too, I don’t think Tammy would be a fan of coffee.”

“No, she prefers decaf,” Derek says and he wishes he was kidding.

Stiles laughs again and he never thought someone could sound gorgeous before, but that sound makes Stiles sound gorgeous and wow Derek might have a problem.

“See you at three then Derek.”

“See you at three,” he says, and then, “how did you get this number?”

“Your sister send it to me out of nowhere.”

“Laura,” he growls.

“What? No. Cora did. We went to high school together, we still chat sometimes. And by chatting I mean she calls me a loser and asks for help with her college stuff.”

“Sounds like Cora,” he says, making a mental note to shove salt in her cereal. “Sorry she harassed you.”

“Every day I get harassed by a Hale is a beautiful day, don’t worry about it. See you at three, Derek. Bye.”

“Bye,” he says a little lamely and hangs up, placing the phone on the desk very carefully and taking in a deep breath.

So he has a date. With a cute boy. If Derek were fourteen this would be right about when he would roll around in his bed and grin stupidly into his pillow, as it is and because he’s a grown up with a kid he limits himself to cover his mouth with a hand and grin, pleased and a little excited.

He has a _date_.

Oh jeez.

He _has_ a _date_. After- after so many years.

Derek hurries out of his bed and almost breaks down his sister’s door. “Laura I have a date!” he despairs, slapping a hand over his eyes and the other over his nose.

There’s the sounds of Laura very carefully climbing off her husband and Derek makes a face behind his hands.

“Good for you, baby brother. Do you think you need my help now or could you wait until I’m done fucking my husband?”

Derek very carefully backtracks out of the room, slams the door closed and walks downstairs like the calm and collected adult he is.

“Caught your sister having intercourse again?” his father asks casually when Derek steps in the kitchen.

“Unfortunately.”

“You’d think after the twelfth time you’d learn how to knock. But no, apparently not.”

“Dad please,” he sighs, kissing his daughter on the forehead and then doing the same for his niece and nephew. The other kids are apparently too big for forehead kisses.

Aunt Olivia pats him in the arm sympathetically and hands over a plate of waffles.

Derek plops down on the counter and starts chewing.

“Did Stiles ask to marry you yet?” Tammy asks, eyeing the ketchup sitting on the counter in front of her.

“No, but we’re going to meet him later to go to the park.”

“Cool!” she crows and reaches for the ketchup.

“If you put that in your waffles you’ll have to eat all of it. Even if you don’t like it,” he warns.

Tammy freezes mid-reach.

“And you can’t have more to get the taste out.”

“You’re evil,” she accuses and sits back down eating her waffle with bits of banana sprinkled over it.

“Just making sure your taste buds not hate you, sweetheart.”

Mara climbs on the table to get to the ketchup and drizzles it all over her waffle.

“I’m gonna eat all of this! So I’m queen of the ketchup. I’m gonna eat ketchup with everything.”

Jay gasps, looking at his sister’s plate in mild disgust. “Even chocolate?” he asks.

“ _Even chocolate!_ ” Mara announces defiantly and takes a huge bite of her waffle.

Her face twists up and Derek picks up his coffee mug, hiding a smile behind it.

“You know the rules. You make it, you eat it.”

“Maybe we shouldn’t-“ Aunt Olivia starts but Derek’s dad holds a hand up and leans back against the counter watching his granddaughter bravely chew through the horrible concoction and swallowing it down.

“Good?” he asks.

Mara makes a face. “Delicious,” she lies and takes another bite.

Derek shakes his head and sips at his coffee.

“Aren’t you glad I was evil now?”

“ _So_ glad,” Tammy says, twisting her nose at her cousin. “You’re my hero daddy, saving me from evil ketchup.”

“Sounds lame,” Katie announces loudly as she walks into the kitchen.

“I’ll take it,” Derek shrugs and settles in to see how long his niece will last before she spits it into the trashcan and makes a run for the chocolate topping.

«»

Tammy is having a particularly difficult time with focusing today.

“My skin itches, daddy,” she complains, eyes snapping around the room like she can’t possibly focus on one thing.

“We’re going to the park to meet Stiles,” he soothes. “Maybe if you run around a little it’ll get better.”

“I ran around all morning,” she whines, popping her claws to scratch at her wrists and Derek has to grab her hand and close his fist around hers so she doesn’t hurt herself.

“We can go to Deaton’s,” he tries, a little desperately.

He never knows what to do with her when she’s like this. There’s no handbook for how to take care of your daughter who’s half werewolf, half whatever the hell Jennifer had become through twisted magic.

Derek kisses her forehead even as she twists her nose at going to Deaton’s.

“I’ll figure something out, okay?”

“Okay,” she mumbles, tugging on her sleeve and rubbing against her forearms.

Derek checks her seatbelt and gets into the driver’s seat, putting on her Disney mix CD in hopes of distract her.

It doesn’t really work, by the time they get to the coffee shop Autumn has welts down her arms and is starting to scratch at her neck.

“Stiles!” Tammy shouts three seconds after they walk through the doors, waiving enthusiastically at the boy. Stiles grins at her and wiggles his fingers, before turning his attention up to Derek and giving him another kind of smile, a more subtle content one.

Derek’s steering Tammy towards him before he fully processes he made the decision to do so.

“Hey, how you’re doing today?”

“Itchy,” Tammy complains at the same time as Derek says, “Well.”

Stiles twists his nose. “Itchy is the _worst_ ,” he tells Tammy honestly, empathically as if the plague of the itchiness was an ailment he suffered severely from multiple times.

Tammy nods jerkily, scratching at her neck with thankfully blunt nails, before she seems to remember something and offers her fist to Stiles. “Bump it!” she demands.

Stiles grins down at her, glancing over at Derek once as if he wants to make sure he’s watching, as if he doesn’t want Derek to miss how his daughter is being adorable.

Stiles closes his hand into a fist and bumps it against Tammy’s; the lightbulbs closest to them explode.

Derek takes two solid minutes to process that information before he yanks Tammy back and shoves her behind him, curling his lips over his teeth at the realization.

 _Witch_.

Stiles stands frozen in front of him before he sighs dramatically. “One time. Just _one time_ can I be interested in someone who isn’t supernatural? Once! That’s all I ask for.”

“You’re a witch,” Derek accuses because of course he is _of course_ this is the shit luck Derek has.

“Excuse you I am a _spark_. I don’t go around calling you a weredog now do I?”

“Daddy,” Tammy whispers pulling at his pantleg.

“Not no-“

“But daddy it doesn’t itch anymore.”

Derek looks down at his daughter, sees silver flecks in her irises and is not sure what to think of it.

“What did you do?” he asks dubiously.

“Me?” Stiles squeaks. “I did nothing. She has too much build up energy from magic. You really should get someone to train her to do small things or it’ll drive her _insane_. Trust me I know what I’m talking about, I suffered from the same.”

“She has been doing _fine_. She doesn’t need-“

“Look, I get it alright. Magic is scary and evil and only brings trouble except when it isn’t. Magic is like a gun and a gun isn’t evil. A gun is only as evil as the person carrying it.”

Derek knows that, in theory. But it’s still hard to separate magic from Jennifer the horrible things she used it to do.

“Stilinski!” someone shouts and Stiles winces slightly turning to a tall, sleek woman with read cascading hair and eyes that narrow into dangerous slits. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing to my coffee shop?”

“Kat, this time was an accident I swear.”

She hisses at him. Literally hisses like a cat and well that would explain why barely any of the patrons flinched when the lightbulb exploded. This must be the supernaturally safe coffee shop Laura keeps gushing about.

“ _This time._ So you admit it! Last time it was on purpose.”

Stiles squeaks and stumbles back just as Kat leaps onto the counter and crouches eyes trained on him.

Derek wonders how this place is still open with health violations like that.

“I had glitter in my hair for _three months_ ,” she growls.

“Nope,” Stiles whispers and makes a break for the door.

Derek has half a second to try and decide if he should go after him when Tammy runs after Stiles, expertly dodging Derek’s reaching hands.

“Tammy,” he shouts and breaks into a sprint, catching his daughter just outside the coffee shop window, where she has joined Stiles in making faces at Kat through the wide glass windows that cover the front.

He stands there watching a grown man stick his tongue out and go cross-eyed and his little daughter pushing her nose up and baring her teeth and he’s just- _disarmed_ would be the word.

Derek’s gone through a lot. His _daughter_ has gone through a lot so by all means the next words out of his mouth should be a harsh call for Autumn to come to him and a warning for Stiles to stay away. The next words out of his mouth should be a demand for an explanation for what his daughter has and how to treat it. It should even be a pure and simple _threat_.

But instead what he says is: “That’s the argument gun loonies use.”

Stiles face drops into slacked confusion and it’s a little jarring to see him change expressions. He thinks the expression Sam would use for this would be _zero to a hundred real quick_.

“Magic is like a gun and guns aren’t evil. That’s the argument people who don’t want tighter gun control use.”

“Oh,” Stiles says, eyes lighting up in understanding and it really shouldn’t be that mesmerizing to see the gears turn in someone’s head but here they are.

Tammy walks backwards until she hits Derek’s legs and tilts her chin up, squinting slightly at Stiles.

“Well, I suppose that was a bad analogy. Magic _does_ have restrictions and rules and enforcers to make sure no one shoots up an elementary school, though. Unlike guns, magic is controlled.”

“Not always,” Derek spits.

“Yeah!” Tammy pipes up. “My mom used magic and she was a crazy motherfu-“

Derek slaps a hand over her mouth. “I’m not letting you hang out with auntie Lexie anymore.”

He turns back to Stiles. “Like I said, not always.”

Stiles tilts his head a little as if conceding the point, brow furrowing. “Maybe we need stricter magic control.”

“You think?”

Stiles shrugs easily. “Either way you should get someone to train your kid. Maybe pack emissary, that’d be a good idea.”

Derek twists his nose.

Tammy bites his palm into letting go.

“You do it Stiles! You’re so cool! And you made it not itchy anymore!”

Stiles grins and his eyes crinkle in the corners. “It’s up to your dad if I can or not.” He leans a little bit closer and puts an open palm to the side of his mouth, loudly whispering, “And I don’t think he likes me very much right now.”

“I don’t dislike you,” Derek blurts out because this day seems to be the day of Derek saying stupid stuff in front of cute people. He’s had an entire life of it, really. “I just don’t trust you,” he concludes.

Stiles bobs his head. “Sounds fair. I don’t dislike you either. And I also don’t trust you.”

“Sounds fair,” he echoes and Stiles grins.

“Do you need to go to make-up corner and hug?” Tammy asks loudly, furrowing her brows at both of them.

“Tell you what. I can help out your daughter always under you watchful eye don’t bare your teeth at me, big guy. And then when we trust each other we should date. Sounds fair?”

Derek presses his lips together and pretends he doesn’t feel like smiling.

“Sounds fair. But on one condition- you have to meet my pack first. They have to approve of you.”

Because everyone in the history of life knows that Derek is a _terrible_ judge of character.

“So Stiles is coming with us?” Tammy pipes up, tugging on Derek’s fingers to make him pay attention to her.

He drops his eyes down and sees the hope in her eyes and hopes to hell and back that this doesn’t blow up in both their faces.

“If he wants to.”

“I want to,” Stiles answers immediately. “Who knows it might even be fun!”

Derek looks back up and smiles dangerously at him because meeting his family. _Fun_. Ah! This poor sucker. He has no idea what’s in store for him.

«»

No one in his family likes Stiles. He’s a witch – _excuse you I am a spark, honestly there’s no respect in this house_ – and he’s interested in Derek which is never a good sign apparently and he wears too lose tank tops with hipster-y designs on them and cargo shorts.

They don’t take very well to him at first.

And by at first Derek means the first two hours.

It kind of goes like this:

Stiles snarks at Uncle Peter and keeps up with his wit, asks Derek’s dad some very specific detailed question about his greenhouse and if he tried playing Taylor Swift to the flowers yet.

And then he scoops earth into Tammy’s hand, plants a little seed on it, quotes Peter Pan and suddenly his daughter is growing a flower out of her palm and Jay starts crying because it’s so pretty so obviously Stiles makes him a flower crown.

“You’re keeping him right?” Laura asks, slinging an arm over Derek’s shoulders and looking on where Stiles is currently gesticulating widely and telling an intricate love story that Derek’s at least seventy two percent sure is the plot of Star Wars.

“I’m thinking about it.”

“You better think hard little brother because you see that booty? That booty is Laura’s future emissary material.”

“Maybe,” he concedes and looks on.

Stiles catches his eye and throws him a wink, not pausing even for a second in his story before taking out his phone to show a vine about the Force.

Tammy looks wide eyed at the guy lifting two people in the air and smushing them together, telling them to kiss.

“Daddy!” she says in a wondrous voice and Derek sighs, almost goes as far as to facepalm because he feels like he’s going to have to deal with floating adults in the very near future and it’ll be Stiles’ fault.

(He’s not wrong. Five hours later he’s standing a couple of inches above the ground and pressed chest to chest with Stiles as his daughter screams at them to kiss.

“Well, you gotta admit she is a fast learner for someone so young,” Stiles reasons like he didn’t spend the entire afternoon teaching her.

Derek huffs.

“Aw, don’t be like that, you should be pr-“

Derek kisses his nose to shut both him and his daughter up.

And that’s how it really starts.)

**Author's Note:**

> FUN STUFF:  
>  \- [article that inspired this prompt](http://www.buzzfeed.com/craigsilverman/a-canadian-mom-wrote-a-touching-letter-to-a-boy-who-helped-h?bffbmain#.xlk7yXbwGM)  
>  \- [vine of the girl doing that trick on the skateboard](https://vine.co/v/etwTrBvr1W9)  
>  \- [thomas sanders' the force vine](https://vine.co/v/imQFFx3hZuP)  
>  \- [a video of a dad teaching his 3yo how to skateboard](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a7wra1f2E_4&list=LLZTpNASi-DE8lS0NEuPCFvA&index=4)
> 
> [here's my tumblr in case you want to wait like thirty years for me to fill a prompt](http://crossroadswrite.tumblr.com)


End file.
